ACRAWSA e-journal, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2008
WHITE NATION FANTASY AND THE NORTHERN TERRITORY
‘INTERVENTION’
ODETTE KELADA
Abstract
This article, ‘White Nation Fantasy and the
Northern Territory ‘Intervention’, looks at the
term ‘whiteness’ and the notion of ‘white
blindness’. It seeks to illustrate how white
blindness allows White Nation Fantasy to
operate to the extent of becoming the real
‘national emergency’ at the heart of
Australia’s race relations. It draws on the
recent Northern Territory Legislation (2007) as
evidence of how White Nation Fantasy
currently dominates Australia’s socio-political
landscape. It examines the ramifications of
perpetuating colonialist narratives in relation
to issues of identity, justice, paternalism and
moral discourses as evident in the production
of the National Emergency Response Bill 2007.
Introduction
There is a popular children’s story called
Where the Wild Things Are. In this story a little
white boy called Max dons an animal suit and
travels across oceans to a land filled with wild
things/monsters. He proceeds to not simply
play with them but to conquer them:
And when he came to the place where the
Wild Things are, they roared their terrible roars
and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled
their terrible eyes and showed their terrible
claws, till Max said be still and tamed them
with a magic trick of staring into all their
yellow eyes without blinking once [1963, 17 –
21].
He becomes king of all the Wild Things. He can
even tell them when to stop causing a rumpus
and go to bed. Then he gets lonely and
hungry and returns home, stepping into his
‘private boat’ despite the pleas from the Wild
Things for Max to stay, coming back to
his nice hot supper.
This is the story that many children in
Australia have grown up with and
loved. It has been critiqued for its
colonial underpinnings – white boy
who conquers a strange land of
savages – and such texts are starting
points to understanding what studies
of whiteness mean, how colonial
narratives
slip
into
mainstream
discourse and our psyche. Stories such
as this may be seen as children’s
fantasies but what often goes unrealised is the extent to which fantasy
can infiltrate adult realms and
national
identities
with
highly
detrimental consequences.
This article looks at the term
‘whiteness’ and the notion of ‘white
blindness’. It then seeks to illustrate
how white blindness allows White
Nation Fantasy to operate to the
extent of becoming the real ‘national
emergency’ at the heart of Australia’s
race relations. It draws on the recent
Northern Territory Legislation (2007) as
evidence of how White Nation
Fantasy
currently
dominates
Australia’s socio-political landscape.
‘Whiteness’ is not necessarily a
biological fact of birth or physical
marker, as this can be a misleading
categorisation. ‘Whiteness’ is the
‘location of experience’ as bell hooks
describes this racial positioning of
subjects [hooks, 1996, 18]. This location
of experience is generally invisible
because as stated, whiteness is
ISSN 1832-3898 © Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association 2008
KELADA: WHITE NATION FANTASY
perceived as ‘natural, ‘normal’ and ‘human’
rather than constructed and oppressive.
Ruth Frankenberg in the influential text White
Women, Race Matters specifies whiteness as
follows:
‘Whiteness…has a set of linked dimensions.
First, whiteness is a location of structural
advantage, of race privilege. Second, it is a
“standpoint”, a place from which white
people look at themselves, at others and at
society. Third “whiteness” refers to a set of
cultural practices that are usually unmarked
and unnamed [cited in Warren, 2003, 22].
Ghassan Hage defines whiteness as a ‘fantasy
position of cultural dominance borne out of
the history of colonial expansion. Not an
essence that one has or does not have’ but
an aspiration [1998, 20]. Hage argues that
‘whiteness and Australianness – of which
Whiteness remains a crucial component can
be accumulated’ and people can be said to
be more or less white and Australian
depending on the social attributes they posses
such as looks, physical characteristics, accent,
language, demeanour, taste, nationally
valued social and cultural preferences and
behaviour [53-54].
No matter how much it is maintained that
multiculturalism reflects the reality of
Australia, the visible and public side of power
remains essentially Anglo White: politicians
are mainly Anglo white, customs officers,
police officers and judges. At the same time,
Australian mythmakers and icons, old and
new are largely Anglo white, from shearers to
surfers to television and radio personalities
ect. This creates a lasting impression that
power, ‘even if open for non-Anglos to
accumulate whiteness within it, remains an
Anglo looking phenomena [190- 191]
Richard Dyer also noted in his seminal text,
White (1997), that identifying as universally
human is the most powerful position one can
inhabit. While there is this invisibility to
whiteness in the sense of naming it as a race,
its domination in terms of representation
through media, advertising, literature, visual
arts, social artifacts etc. is practically all
2
pervasive in the West. The term white
blindness refers to this invisibility and
inability to see whiteness as raced but
rather normative and universal.
In August 2006 an event titled ‘The
White Blindfold Ritual’ was held by
ANTAR at the Melbourne Town Hall
where legal and union leaders among
others, literally put on white blindfolds.
This was to symbolise the inability of
white people to see, understand and
acknowledge their own race as
visible, the consequences of white
blindness to Indigenous people and to
mark a commitment to ‘see things
differently’.
Human Rights Lawyer Julian Burnside
said at the ceremony that ‘It’s fair to
say that my white blindfold only came
off fairly recently and until that time I
didn’t know that I had it on. But
perhaps that’s the point’ (ANTAR,
2007).
Working to remove what has been
termed ‘the white blindfold’ counters
the inability to see whiteness as a race
but rather as the norm. One does not
have to be ‘white’ in order to be
‘white washed’
for colonialist
discourse is predominant, pervasive,
internalised and often so integrated
into the order of our society that it is
invisible.
An awareness of white blindness
enables an acknowledgement of how
this racial dominance informs political
strategies and events. This can be
seen through examining as a case
study the way in which the events in
the
Northern
Territory
unfolded.
Looking at the production of the
recent Northern Territory Legislation
provides insight into how whiteness
works as an ideological force shaping
Australian society at every level of
power and capital - from political
KELADA: WHITE NATION FANTASY
power and national identity formation to land
rights and possession.
Here understanding and seeing ‘whiteness’
enables one to move beyond the misdirected
emphasis on the ‘other’, the oft cited
‘Aboriginal Problem’ to realise what it reveals
about white Australia - what can be learnt
about how whiteness works, its constructions,
conceptualisation,
belief
systems,
how
whiteness is produced, circulated, performed
and reiterated to sustain its cultural power.
Then one may determine that as Germaine
Greer stated, there is no Aboriginal problem in
Australia, there is a white problem [2004, 2].
The following study of the Northern Territory
Intervention utilises the framework of ‘White
Nation Fantasy’ as this exemplifies the impact
of whiteness as a social construct and the
ramifications of white blindness. White Nation
Fantasy is a concept which has been critiqued
and developed by numerous cultural and
race theorists, a primary one of which is
Ghassan Hage who wrote White Nation:
Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural
Society [1998].’ Hage provides the following
definition:
White Nation Fantasy is where white
racists and tolerant, white multiculturalists
both see their nation structured around a
white culture which they control, with
Aboriginal people and migrants as exotic
objects [48].
Hage notes that this fantasy, while socially and
historically grounded in ideals of white
dominance emerging from the history of white
colonisation of Australia, has a great capacity
for adaptation so is able to sustain itself and
offers the subject ‘a relatively stable and
viable sense of themselves’, so a ‘credible and
continuing sense of white dominance’ [209]. In
this landscape, white Australians
…share in a concept of themselves as
nationalists and of the nation as a space
structured around a white culture where
Aboriginal people and non-white ‘ethnics’
are merely national objects to be moved or
removed according to a white national
will’[18]. This belief in mastery over
the nation is defined as White
Nation
Fantasy.
‘Nationalist
practices seem to be necessarily
grounded in an image in which the
nationalists construct themselves as
spatially
dominant’
with
‘managerial
rights
over
racialised/ethnicised
groups
or
persons which are consequently
constructed
as
manageable
objects [48].
Such a framework when applied to
the Northern Territory Intervention
allows an insight into why Australia
accepts
the
intervention/invasion
occurring and what this indicates
about race relations in Australia. Here
is a brief timeline of the events I am
referring to:
-15 June 2007 - Little Children Are
Sacred Report: Report of the Northern
Territory Inquiry into the Protection of
Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse
2007 is released.
-22 June – Federal Government
declares a National Emergency as a
result of report findings on child abuse
and details of his plan begin to
emerge
- 27- 28 June – Federal Government
seizes control of the administration of
Indigenous
Communities
in
the
Northern Territory. Troops move into
Central Australian communities.
- 7 August – The Federal Government
has introduced draft laws into
parliament that allows it to intervene
in
Northern
Territory
Indigenous
communities.
-16 August – The Northern Territory
National Emergency Response Bill is
put to vote in the Senate.
- 17 August –The Northern Territory
National Emergency Response Bill is
3
KELADA: WHITE NATION FANTASY
passed in the Senate with no amendments.
Further, the effects of the legislation include:
- Permits will not be required to visit larger
public townships and the roads that connect
them.
-Widespread alcohol restrictions, creating a
general ban on people having, selling,
transporting and drinking alcohol in prescribed
areas.
- Fines of $75,000 and up to 18 month
imprisonment could be imposed on people
who try to smuggle alcohol into the remote
communities.
- The government acquires five year leases
over townships and takes over the town
camps.
- bans on the possession of pornography for
five years, and impose regular audits on
publicly-funded computers to stop sexually
explicit material being accessed through the
internet.
- It becomes an offence for people in
Aboriginal
communities
to
possess
pornographic material, or for the material to
be sent into the areas. People caught in the
prescribed communities with five or more
pornographic videos or magazines will be
considered "traffickers'' and could face up to
two
years
in
prison.
- It allows heavier penalties to be imposed on
anyone
who
supplies
five
or
more
pornographic
items.
- Australian Federal Police officers are given
the same powers as local NT police.
- The Federal and NT governments will retain
ownership of buildings and infrastructure on
Aboriginal land that are constructed or
upgraded
with
government
funding.
4
-The legislation also prohibits Northern
Territory judges and magistrates taking
Aboriginal law into account when
sentencing
or
considering
bail
applications.
[From ‘NT Indigenous intervention bills
introduced to parliament’, National
Indigenous Times, 7/8/07]
How Does the Northern Territory
Legislation relate to White Nation
Fantasy?
One of the key elements in viewing
White Nation Fantasy in action and a
key point I wish to draw from the case
study, is that this fantasy depends on
paternalism
as
this
enables
management and control to create a
space structured around a white
culture where ‘Aboriginal people and
non-white ‘ethnics’ are national
objects to be moved or removed’
[Hage, 1998, 18]. This legislation can
be seen to fit into the definition of
nationalist practices grounded in an
image in which the nationalists
construct themselves as spatially
dominant with managerial rights over
a racialised group ‘consequently
constructed as the manageable
object’ [48].
Elements of white fantasy can be seen
in much of the Government policy on
Indigenous Affairs. Robert Manne
notes that Indigenous Australians have
been long been subjected to policies
and special laws in the name of
protection which included ‘controlled
movement,
marriage,
sexual
behaviour, children, employment,
savings and the consumption of
alcohol’ [2007, 30].
When we look at this legislation and
the way in which it was produced,
there
are
three
elements
of
KELADA: WHITE NATION FANTASY
paternalism I wish to focus on to help
appreciate the effects of such laws and
actions. These are 1) observation/surveillance,
2) management and control, 3) lack of
consultation,
subject to such supervision exemplifies
discrimination on racial grounds. With
these
mechanisms
in
place,
disciplinary management and control
are achieved with greater ease.
In terms of surveillance, intensive scrutiny and
monitoring is a necessary arm of paternalism
as information on the movement of
subordinated bodies is a vital mechanism for
control of these bodies. Michel Foucault
captured the effectiveness of surveillance and
observation for disempowering and controlling
subjects in his work Discipline and Punish
[1977]. He drew on the example of the
Panoptican to describe how this works. The
Panoptican was a building designed for
maximum surveillance of prisoners with the
least deployment of resources.
Another aspect of paternalism is lack
of consultation – This can be seen in
the haste with which the legislation
was passed, the lack of consultation
with Indigenous peoples and the
failure to take into account any of the
recommendations
of
The
Little
Children are Sacred Report.
The Pan-optican has a tower in the centre
surrounded by a ring shaped building
composed of cells, each housing a prisoner.
It allows for the continuous observation of
inmates…Panopticism is the exemplary
technique through which disciplinary power is
able
to
function
for
it
relies
on
surveillance…The major effect of the Panoptican; to induce in the inmate a state of
conscious and permanent visibility that
assures the automatic functioning of power.
[MacHoul & Grace, Foucault Primer:
Discourse, Power and the Subject, 1995, 67]
The inmates never know when they are being
watched so they start to watch themselves all
the time. In effect, the Northern Territory
legislation, dependant on audits and checks,
the takeover of Aboriginal land, quarantining
of welfare payments practices, widespread
alcohol restrictions, controls over the use of
computers, takeovers of the administration of
Aboriginal councils, created a Panoptican. To
put the laws into action require instruments of
surveillance which ensure Indigenous subjects
are rendered constantly visible. The effect of
such surveillance is an erosion of liberty,
esteem and self – empowerment. In itself, this
panoptical observation is a form of violence,
the violation of consistently being watched
and monitored. The fact that this legislation
targets a specific race and people to be
Democrat Senator, Andrew Bartlett
described the procedure thus:
I have also been informed that the
government intends bringing the
legislation on for debate in the
Senate tomorrow, with the aim of
having it voted on by Thursday.
Efforts by myself and others to seek
to ensure a Senate Committee can
look at the new laws and give
Aboriginal people and others from
the Northern Territory the chance to
have a say, seem set to be
squashed by the government. [
2007]
Along with Bartlett, others expressed
concern
about
the
lack
of
consultation and haste. Law Council
of Australia President, Tim Bugg, said
that “the ultra-speedy passage of
these Bills is also clearly designed to
avoid public scrutiny” [Law Council of
Australia site, 2007]. Labor MP Warren
Snowdon called the tactics an abuse
of due process. [Snowdon Site, 2007]
A delegation of Indigenous leaders
from the NT condemned the rushed
legislation, one of the whom, John Ah
Kit, compared the legislation to
genocide saying “What is being
pushed through parliament in the next
couple of days is something that will
go down in history as one of the
bleakest days in the history of the
5
KELADA: WHITE NATION FANTASY
country”
(‘Indigenous
intervention
genocide’,The Age, 2007).
laws
The justification for the haste was to quote Mal
Brough "This is an emergency situation in the
Northern Territory and we need to act quickly,"
Mr Brough said, "Each and every day, children
are being abused. We need strong powers so
that we are not weighed down by
unnecessary red tape and talk-fests, and can
focus on doing what needs to be done"
(National Indigenous Times, 2007). Anyone
who criticised the measures was either ‘Not a
parent or doesn’t have a soul” (‘Legislate in
haste, repent at Leisure’,The Age, 2007) Strong
words to counter opposition – If you disagree,
you are soulless.
It was the declaration of a National
Emergency tied in with moral discourses which
provided the avenue for radical paternalist
action – the declaration by Howard that the
time for talking is over [ABC News Site, 2007]
and
the
subsequent
surveillance,
management and control manifest in the
‘intervention’ . White Nation Fantasy is built on
desire for power which is ultimately ensured if
one continues to advocate paternalism. While
paternalism prevails there is always a limit on
the power, responsibility, freedom and selfgovernance of those inhabiting the ‘child’
space in the paternalistic dynamic.
A crisis or state of emergency which calls for a
paternalist response is a crisis which selfperpetuates, bites its own tail and creates the
destruction it supposedly responds to so
diligently. This meets the criteria of fantasy as
the solutions put forth are inevitably illusory illusions of cleaning up, restoring order,
containing
chaos.
To
appreciate
the
complexity of fantasy is to become aware
that fantasy needs this chaos to exist. It thrives
upon representations of disorder and crisis to
ensure its own survival as it is through the
stimulus of fear and alarm that its own
existence is validated as necessary and
access to control and capital as the domain
of the white paternalist figure remains
protected.
6
The case study of the Northern
Territory events demonstrates in
luminous detail the current discourse
of paternalism. What is worth noting
here is that the climate in Australia is
one where this is openly expressed,
acknowledged, accepted by the
proponents and now law in this
country. Federal Health Minister, Tony
Abbot, called for ‘a new paternalism’
to address problems of abuse in
Indigenous communities [Grattan,
2007].
John Howard himself has
openly declared these moves are
interventionalist, paternalistic
and
racially discriminatory. Noel Pearson ,
director of Cape York Institute for
Policy and Leadership and a strong
influential voice in this debate stated:
‘Ask the terrified kid huddling in the
corner when there is a binge drinking
party going on down the hall if they
want a bit of paternalism’. Howard
responded ‘We are dealing with
children of the tenderest age who
have been exposed to the most
terrible abuse…what matters more:
the constitutional niceties, or the care
and protection of young children’
[Karvatas, 2007, 1].
It is Howard’s emotive response to
children of the tenderest age which
allows the paradox of the constitution
being made up of niceties, as
opposed
to
safeguarding
constitutional rights and laws. Thus the
scene is set for a contravening of the
constitution if need be. And in such a
way that one would be either not a
parent or soulless to disagree.
This overt paternalism and the call for
a National Emergency is warranted
through the literal reference to the
child and the use of morality and child
protection discourses. To analyse the
tropes of child protection provides
further insight into the justification for
observation,
control
and
KELADA: WHITE NATION FANTASY
management and lack of consultation.
The Little Children are Sacred Report was the
report of the Northern Territory enquiry into the
Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual
Abuse 2007. It was this report which appeared
to reveal the shocking epidemic of child
abuse
which
galvanised
a
national
emergency to be declared. The reaction was
such that one would be forgiven for thinking
this report had uncovered new truths. As
writer and academic, Jennifer Martinello
states, 1989,1991,1993,1997 and 2002 is a list of
the years that reports were presented which
told the government in detail about these
problems and lobbied for proper resources in
place of neglect [‘Howard’s new Tampa
children overboard are our Aboriginal
children’, 2007]. In 1989, Judy Atkinson wrote a
report for the ‘National Inquiry on Violence’
stating that sexual abuse was endemic and
epidemic in Indigenous communities. Only a
year ago, she says that it was one of Mal
Brough’s advisors who asked her if all the talk
of child sexual abuse documented in these
extensive reports was just ‘false memory’
syndrome [Chandler, 2007, 5]. It is after these
years of inaction that Brough claims the
legislation must be rushed because delays put
children at risk.
Emotive language in the place of discussing
practicalities, rights and due procedure was
evident from the beginning of the events.
Despite being the justification, none of the 97
recommendations in The Little Children Are
Sacred Report were included in the
intervention. As Pat Anderson, one of the
writers of the report stated “There's not a single
action that the Commonwealth has taken so
far
that
corresponds
with
a
single
recommendation…There is no relationship
between these emergency powers and what's
in our report” [‘Govt to push through
Indigenous intervention laws’, 2007]. Anderson
also stated, ‘I would appeal to the Prime
Minister to stop. Please stop, don't proceed.
Just stop so he can talk to more Aboriginal
people, to talk to Aboriginal leaders’ [ABC’s
Lateline transcript, 2007].
It is important to appreciate that
White Nation Fantasy is extremely
dangerous. As a fantasy it is not real.
As it is predicated on race, it exists
and is perpetuated by inequality and
ignorance. From this base, no
effective solutions can be found, no
real
dialogue
performed,
no
acknowledgement of a situation can
be represented and validated. The
treatment of The Little Children Are
Sacred Report, which supposedly
galvanised
Howard’s
National
Emergency is an example of the
disjuncture and anomalies which
occur when fantasy is at play. While
Howard claimed to have taken the
report seriously enough to have sent in
the troops, he is able to simultaneously
ignore its recommendations and
violate many of the major principles
expounded in the report such as
consultation. There is no need to draw
on the studied and researched
recommendations even if citing the
report as the basis for radical action.
Here paradox is
married with
contradiction – all elements of the
fantastical.
The discourse of child protection
echoes the ‘For their Own Good’
approach essential to the Stolen
Generation tragedy. It was the
rhetoric of child welfare that justified
the removal of Aboriginal children
from their families. Jennifer Rutherford
highlights the link between morality
and aggression in Australia’s history,
demonstrating in her work The
Gauche
Intruder
[2000],
that
aggression has historically manifested
itself at the very moments when white
Australia has set out to do good.
Rutherford notes that national fantasy
is built on fantasised images of a good
Australia. She draws on Lacan’s Ethics
of Psychoanalysis to explore the link
between doing good and causing
grief.
7
KELADA: WHITE NATION FANTASY
When a subject, a state, a nation sets out on
the path of realising its good, what is
inevitably in play is the logic of power. “The
domain of the good is the birth of power…ie.
to exercise control over one’s goods is to
have the right to deprive others of them”
[citing Lacan]. This identification with the
power to do good underpins the numerous
attempts at social engineering that have
characterised Australia’s shady history of
black/white relations: relations that have
deprived Aboriginal Australians at every turn,
of their good. The intent to do good is the
alibi that is called upon whenever this history
of deprivation momentarily registers in the
national conscience. (2000, 26 – 27).
There is often an inevitable link between
paternalism and the deployment of morality
child centred discourses. To analyse tropes of
child protection can provide insight into the
manipulation of emotive imagery and
representation of the most innocent and
vulnerable to warrant political strategies which
appear to become increasingly suspect in
intention.
Instigating moral alarm works on ideological
structures and belief systems rather than
requiring much factual realities or truth.
Emotions are engaged and heightened
through drawing on the imagery of exploited
innocence. These emotions can then be used
to justify actions otherwise disallowed by law
and publicly sanctioned systems. Once this
occurs, stereotypes and bias representations
fuelled by emotive language may gain power.
On the basis of moral arguments comprising
these complicating factors, the unacceptable
becomes accepted, the unthinkable justified
in the name of ‘for the good of... ’ whichever
group is being managed and controlled.
Paternalism therefore utilises moral discourse to
great effect. The greater the moral crisis, the
more paternalism may be not only permitted
but desired and received with relief. Raimond
Gaita in ‘The Nation Reviewed’ asks ‘could
such disrespect as the failure to consult be
shown to any other community in this country?
He felt no, because:
8
Aborigines and their culture are still
seen from a racist, denigrating
perspective.
From
that
perspective, the (sincere) concern
for children is concern for them as
the children of a denigrated
people, just as it was when
children whom we now call the
Stolen Generation were taken
from their parents. [ 2007, 13]
In Oxfam’s report, Prof. Jon Altman
stated,
I could find no evidence of the
proposed
measures
being
connected in any way to child sex
abuse, and concluded that there
may even be some risk of
exacerbating the situation if the
permit system is relaxed [‘OxFam
research: Land Rights Act changes
detrimental and will not reduce
child sex abuse’, 2007]
He also noted that changes to the
permit system are based on an
ideological position rather than any
factual basis, because there is no
evidence that child abuse is more
prevalent in areas where the system
exists.
There
are
claims
the
intervention/invasion is to do with a
broader push towards assimilation,
mining uranium and with deals made
with the US to provide land for
uranium waste. One cartoon in The
Age, captured this contradiction with
the caption ‘We believe the best way
to protect your children is to take over
your land and start mining uranium’
[14/7/07, 7]. Suffice to say that as
White Nation Fantasy is all about
power, then uses of power to
accumulate or designate resources is
all part of what colluding in such a
fantasy allows a nation to do. White
blindness means that in Australia, this
fantasy prevails.
KELADA: WHITE NATION FANTASY
White Nation Fantasy requires the power to
act paternalistically through discourses of
morality and crisis. Once these discourses are
engaged, the power to oversee and manage
and control a group of people excluded from
the white nation such as Indigenous peoples,
without consultation is achieved. As long as
this power is utilised, the fantasy is selfperpetuated and any equity or fairness
cannot be achieved. There can be no long
term solution to problems created by
dispossession and discrimination and thus no
meaningful reconciliation. To shift this, we
need to become aware of how white fantasy
is indeed something Australians are fed as
children in stories like Where the Wild Things
Are.
This article began with the tale of Where the
Wild Things Are as an example of the
enculturation in childhood of colonialist
ideology. White male contains and conquers
savages and thus restores safety and order. As
adults, we are not read children’s stories
anymore, but we do get told and continue to
tell the same fantasies – the narration
continues in the guise of the leader of the
country telling us he is stepping in and taking
control, the wild savagery at the heart of the
country in the form of Indigeneity is contained.
Hence this is met with some relief by the white
majority. The narratives of colonialism lay the
ground for such fantasy fulfilment. The need to
wake up before continuing the cycle of harm
is the real national emergency. If this was
achieved, then the possibility of responding to
the nation- wide epidemic of child abuse and
alcohol related issues and violence could be
addressed as ‘National Emergencies’ nationwide.
In his famous Redfern Address, Paul Keating
said ‘We failed to ask the most basic
questions. We failed to ask – What if it were
done to us?’ Martinello asks this same question
now. What if the military seized control of white
communities and placed them under military
occupation?
This is not Israel and Palestine. The Northern
Territory is not Gaza or the West Bank. This is
Australia – but is it the Australia you
thought you lived in? Walk in our
shoes, Aboriginal Australia’s, and
ask yourselves, what would it be like
to have this done to us? And then,
walk with us. [ 2007, 4]
Author Note
Odette Kelada has a PhD from
Charles Sturt University in Literature.
She is currently working at Monash
University as a Research Associate for
Prof. Rachel Fensham, researching a
three-year ARC Discovery grant
project on ‘Transnational and crosscultural choreographies’. As well as
teaching in Fantasy Narratives at
Monash and guest lecturing on race
and children’s literature, she has also
taught and guest lectured for Dr
Wayne
Atkinson
at
Melbourne
University on Indigenous People and
the State and Indigenous Land,
Culture and Heritage. Her areas of
interest include feminism, post-colonial
theory, literature, critical whiteness
studies and cultural history. Email:
odette.kelada@arts.monash.edu.au
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11